Well I guess one person has to be different and in this case it's me. I am NOT a member of PETA, but I do accept their newsletters and I believe that they stand for a good cause. Instead of taking the news article posted on here for what it was worth, I sent it to PETA and asked them to explain themselves and their actions. After all, there are two sides to every story. Here is the message I recieved along with my original email to them. It only took someone 14 hours to respond, which in my book says a lot.
I agree that some of their antics are extreme, but that is no different than the woman that someone posted on here a few weeks ago, who entered "someone's property" and stole the dog. A lot of the people on here said she was a hero and there needed to be more out there like her. Yet PETA strives to do the same for LOTS of animlas and they are terrorists? Flame away...but I thought it was only right to stick up for both sides here.
Dear Sara,
Thank you for contacting PETA. That means you care, and we wish everyone did.
On Oct 25, two PETA staffers found a skinny dog alone alongside a highway in Southampton County, VA and picked her up. They did what PETA urges everyone to do when they encounter strays: Stop and assist (
http://www.PETA.org/about/strayanimals.asp). They took the dog off the road, removed the dog’s shock collar—which can malfunction, causing painful burns (
http://www.HelpingAnimals.com/animalsHome_dogs_shock.asp)—and were calling in the dog tag information to the PETA office so that someone could quickly try to get in touch with the dog’s guardian.
While doing this, they were approached by a sheriff who apparently owned the dog, so they immediately returned the dog to him. The sheriff’s department subsequently sent out a news release saying that the two are being charged with grand and petty larceny for “absconding with a hunting dog.†Our two staffers who stopped to help the dog did not know that, unlike in Norfolk, the rest of the Hampton Roads region, and other counties in Virginia, Southampton County is one of the few areas in which dogs are permitted to run loose if wearing tags—a law that needs to be changed for the animals’ own safety (
http://www.HelpingAnimals.com/pdfs/Unsupervised%20.pdf). We hope that this doesn’t discourage caring people from stopping to care for animals who need help.
The report from North Carolina regarding the dumping of animal bodies in a dumpster by a PETA staff member was deeply upsetting. It is against PETA’s policy to put the bodies of euthanized animals in dumpsters, as you might imagine. We are appalled that a member of our staff apparently did that; there is no excuse for what happened, and she is no longer working with us. However, we are confident that no cruelty occurred and that the courts will see that.
It is PETA’s policy that no one on our staff is ever to give anyone the impression that animals we accept are being taken for placement, and we do not believe that anyone involved in this case was misled. It is also our policy that the vast majority of animals we accept are only those who are in terrible conditions or unadoptable for some reason, such as aggression or sickness in old age. In other words, we accept the majority of these animals to provide them with a peaceful death through euthanasia, usually by request.
Because there has also been a great deal of misinformation in the news about these cases and their circumstances, we want to provide you with some additional background information—something the media has not done.
PETA is on the front lines of the battle to turn back the tide of unwanted dogs and cats. Our caseworkers tirelessly rescue homeless animals from environmental dangers, as well as cruelty and neglect (
http://www.HelpingAnimals.com/about_cap.asp). They crawl through sewers, poke through junkyards, climb trees, and dodge traffic in order to reach animals in danger. During floods and storms, they are out saving lives at all hours.
Some of the animals we take in are lost companions with loving families who miss them; we are always happy to return such animals to their homes. We have also managed to catch and return some highly elusive animals other agencies had given up on. PETA does not operate a shelter—although we foster many healthy homeless animals that we have rescued in homes (often our own) or take them to shelters to await adoption—but, even in shelters, the reality is that thousands of adoptable animals are euthanized every day due to the lack of good homes.
Because most area residents take healthy, adoptable animals directly to local shelters, the majority of the animals we receive are extremely sick or injured beings for whom euthanasia is, without a doubt, the most humane option; to learn more, please see our factsheet at
http://www.PETA.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=39. To learn about one local instance, please see
http://www.HelpingAnimals.com/f-asiasstory.asp. On another occasion, when a power-line transformer explosion burned a flock of starlings, PETA was the only agency to come to the birds’ aid; if our trained technicians had not been ready to end these starlings’ misery, the injured birds would have suffered in agony for days before finally succumbing to a painful death.
In addition, PETA provides free euthanasia services for local residents who have very sick, critically injured, or geriatric companions but can’t afford to take them to a veterinarian. One family, lacking money for vet care and transportation, turned to us for help for their cat, who had barely crawled back home after being mauled by a pack of dogs. We were able to help by giving the cat a peaceful end to her intense pain.
We began offering our services to shelters in North Carolina in 2000, after PETA was contacted by a police officer who was distressed by conditions in a county pound. North Carolina has the second-highest kill rate per capita in the country—35 animals killed annually for every 1,000 residents—and most do not die a humane death. When we step in to properly euthanize animals (at no cost to the participating shelters) as we do in this instance, our involvement prevents animals from being shot to death with a .22 caliber firearm, gassed to death in an rusty metal box, or injected with a paralytic that causes slow suffocation without loss of consciousness. It prevents their suffering for weeks on end from disease and illness, or worse. We know from bitter experience that for homeless animals—even those in some shelters—there is such a thing as a fate worse than death. To learn more about the conditions that led to our involvement in North Carolina and about some of the many improvements we’ve been able to make, please visit
http://www.HelpingAnimals.com/f-nc.asp.
We wish that there were other acceptable options available. We cannot bring the majority of these animals back to Virginia for placement—the same issues regarding adoptability of injured, sick, or old animals exist everywhere, and “open-admission†shelters, which never turn their backs on any animal (unlike so-called “no-kill†shelters, which turn many animals away) are already unable to cope with the overpopulation of animals. There simply are not enough homes for them. Using Virginia shelters also means that there would be fewer homes for animals already in Virginia adoption facilities.
Some might argue that the solution to this crisis of overpopulation of so many unwanted animals is to open sanctuaries. But the sad reality is that the math doesn’t add up. There is not enough money available to us or anyone to build enough sanctuaries or organize enough animal-adoption programs to keep up with the number of unwanted animals, particularly those animals deemed “undesirable†because of their infirmities, age, or behavior. Abandoning domesticated animals to fend for themselves would be irresponsible, of course, but to keep them in cages or pens for a lifetime is no more humane for homeless dogs and cats than it is for animals in laboratories or circuses. To learn more about "no-kill" shelters, see
http://www.PETA.org/Living/AT-Fall2005/nokill.asp and
http://www.PETA.org/feat/acgas/index1.asp.
Putting all our resources into kenneling unwanted animals would also do nothing to stop the flow of more and more unwanteds. The source of the problem—trying to prevent the births of unwanted animals—is where money and efforts need to go. PETA runs a mobile spay/neuter clinic (
http://www.HelpingAnimals.com/about_snip.asp) seven days a week, focusing much of our work in disadvantaged neighborhoods, where we offer free and low-cost surgeries and other services such as flea/tick treatments and worming. In the last year, we have sterilized thousands of dogs and cats—many free of charge and all others at well below our own costs. Support for this program is much needed, as you can imagine.
We hope you understand that it is heart-wrenching for those of us at PETA and at shelters across the country who care deeply for animals to have to hold animals in our arms and take their lives because there is nowhere decent for them to go. Those who truly seek to make a difference for animals understand that it is necessary to do the right thing—even when it's unpleasant—rather than supporting false "solutions" simply because they make us feel less uncomfortable. PETA has always spoken openly about euthanasia on our Web site and in our publications, and—although we understand that it is upsetting to think about—euthanasia will continue to be necessary in this imperfect world until people prevent dogs and cats from bringing new litters into the world and as long as people hide their heads in the sand and leave the dirty work to others.
We hope this has shed some light on our policies, and our work. To learn more about what PETA is doing for companion animals and how you can help, please see the following Web sites:
· Save homeless animals:
http://www.HelpingAnimals.com/ga_spay.asp
· More ways to help dogs and cats:
http://www.HelpingAnimals.com
· Become an advocate for animals:
http://www.PETA.org/actioncenter
Thanks again for writing and for your compassion for animals.
Sincerely,
The PETA Staff
http://www.PETA.org
From: KanoasDestiny@
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 12:29 PM
To: info
Subject: Question
I have always thought that PETA stood for a good thing, but lately, there has been reports that PETA members are on trial for animal abuse. One being that a couple of members promised an animal shelter they would find good homes for rescues, but were caught by police hours later throwing bags of dead dogs/cats away? I would just like to know why PETA is getting a bad rap in newspapers for killings thousands of animals that they claim to help, when they say they are trying to better the lives of these animals. Please please please explain all of this to me, as I no longer know which side to be on. I love animals and I refuse to stand by anyone who kills them, regardless of the reason.
Thank You,
Sara
P.S. This was the most recent article that I saw.